In 1977, when Robin Hirsch and two other artists opened a cafe in a tiny storefront on Cornelia Street, they had no idea that, 25 years later, it would still be a cultural and intellectual focal point in Manhattan.

“Almost on a whim, we started this little cafe with just a toaster oven and little else,” says Hirsch. “We were just looking for a place to hang our hat and show our art.”

Over the past 25 years, the Cornelia Street Cafe has played host to a wildly diverse assortment of writers, musicians and artists. Playwright Eve Ensler debuted “The Vagina Monologues” there, and Suzanne Vega played some of her first gigs in the intimate basement space, which holds no more than 70 people.

Hirsch sees the cafe as a holdover from a different time, when conversation was king.

“That sort of attitude is missing now,” says Hirsch. “I think it got swamped by a kind of TV culture and a general shortening of attention spans.

“Now, this sort of cafe is in danger of being eclipsed by chains like Starbucks – places where people go to be alone rather than participate in a larger conversation.”

Though the cafe features three dining rooms and an oak bar upstairs, and a menu that has garnered unqualified raves from a number of major publications, the art of conversation is its raison d’etre, says Hirsch, who sees the live acts as a complement to the animated chatter in the cafe’s basement.

“Even the most outré performances are an extension of the conversations that go on at the tables.

“A professor friend of mine told me that the level of conversation here is higher than in any university he’s taught in.

It’s the same reason that cafes in 18th-century England were called ‘penny universities.'”

The cafe starts the celebration tomorrow with a typically eclectic program – a science lecture moderated by Roald Hoffmann, winner of the 1981 Nobel Prize in chemistry, followed by a set by the McHenry/Iverson jazz quartet.